SOC Analyst

Leidos•Alexandria, VA

2d•$87,100 - $157,450

About The Position

Leidos is hiring a Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst to support the Pentagon Reservation under the DISA GSM-O II TN24 Penetration Handling, Incident, System Health (PHISH) Support Services II program. The position supports a 24/7 SOC mission and requires availability for rotating shifts, including weekends, holidays, and inclement-weather operations. The analyst performs continuous monitoring, detection, analysis, escalation, mitigation, and response for cybersecurity events affecting customer networks, endpoints, servers, applications, cloud environments, and mission systems. Using security telemetry, threat intelligence, established analytic procedures, and operational tools, the analyst identifies suspicious or malicious activity, investigates potential compromises, documents findings, and coordinates response actions with senior analysts, incident responders, cyber engineers, system owners, and mission partners. This is an experienced technical individual-contributor role. The analyst works independently on day-to-day operational objectives and may own defined SOC projects or technical processes. The role contributes to operational cybersecurity, infrastructure support, and mission-support activities; collaborates with subject-matter experts to resolve technical problems; and may provide peer support, coaching, or technical review for less-experienced personnel.

Requirements

Active DoD Top Secret clearance with ability to obtain SCI.
DoD 8570 IAT II or higher certification (such as CompTIA Security+ CE, ISC2 SSCP, or SANS GSEC) before starting.
Ability to obtain DoD 8570 CSSP-Analyst certification (such as CEH, CySA+, or GCIA) within six months of starting.
Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, information technology, computer science, intelligence studies, or a related technical discipline, and 4–8 years of relevant experience; or an equivalent combination of relevant military service, cybersecurity education, certifications, and professional experience.
Experience supporting a SOC, CND organization, cyber protection team, incident-response team, network operations center, or comparable cybersecurity operations environment.
Experience monitoring and investigating cybersecurity events using SIEM, EDR, IDS/IPS, endpoint, network, identity, cloud, vulnerability, and log-data sources.
Working knowledge of incident-response processes, including alert triage, investigation, escalation, evidence collection, containment support, remediation coordination, and incident documentation.
Working knowledge of TCP/IP, common ports and protocols, network traffic flow, endpoint and operating-system fundamentals, authentication and identity activity, and enterprise security controls.
Familiarity with adversary TTPs, attack vectors, indicators of compromise, common malware behaviors, and analytic frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK and the Cyber Kill Chain.
Ability to analyze available data, identify gaps or uncertainties, apply established procedures, and communicate technically sound findings and recommendations.
Ability to prepare clear case notes, incident summaries, shift-turnover products, and technical reports for technical and operational audiences.
Ability to collaborate effectively across SOC operations, incident response, cyber engineering, system administration, and customer or mission-partner organizations.
Ability to work independently on assigned operational objectives, technical processes, or projects, while recognizing when to seek assistance or escalate risk.
Availability for rotating shifts, including weekends, holidays, and inclement-weather operations.

Nice To Haves

Experience with enterprise SIEM platforms such as Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, IBM QRadar, ArcSight, Elastic, or comparable tools.
Experience with EDR, antivirus, host-based security tools, IDS/IPS, network detection and response, vulnerability-management tools, NetFlow, or packet-capture analysis.
Familiarity with Windows and Unix/Linux operating systems, command-line tools, and system-administration concepts.
Experience with structured threat hunting, detection tuning, use-case development, or translating threat intelligence into analytic queries.
Familiarity with malicious-file triage, malware-analysis concepts, network-forensics techniques, or host-forensics artifacts.
Experience with scripting or automation using Python, PowerShell, Bash, or a similar language.
Relevant cybersecurity certifications, including those required by the applicable contract, customer, or Department of War policy.

Responsibilities

Monitor, triage, and investigate alerts from SIEM platforms, EDR tools, IDS/IPS, authentication logs, NetFlow, packet capture, cloud-security tools, vulnerability data, and other security sensors.
Analyze endpoint, host, network, identity, application, and cloud telemetry to identify anomalous, suspicious, or malicious activity.
Investigate assigned incidents by correlating evidence, identifying potentially affected systems or accounts, assessing scope and impact, and escalating cases according to established procedures.
Use cyber threat intelligence and knowledge of adversary TTPs to validate alerts, identify indicators of compromise, prioritize investigations, and provide context to incident responders and technical stakeholders.
Support approved containment, eradication, recovery, and post-incident activities through evidence collection, action documentation, security-control validation, and coordination with designated response personnel.
Perform computer forensic network and host analysis for incident investigations, threat hunts, and evidence-based reporting.
Support proactive threat hunts, environment sweeps, and detection-validation activities based on adversary activity, vulnerabilities, and organizational priorities.
Identify false positives, control gaps, telemetry limitations, suspicious trends, vulnerabilities, and adversary behaviors; recommend improvements to detection logic, dashboards, analytic workflows, playbooks, and SOC processes.
Help develop, test, tune, and document detection use cases, correlation logic, analytic playbooks, standard operating procedures, work instructions, and knowledge-management artifacts.
Document analytic methods, evidence, findings, actions, escalation decisions, and recommended next steps in case-management and knowledge-management systems.
Prepare incident tickets, shift summaries, situational-awareness updates, and technical reports for SOC personnel, incident responders, system owners, and operational stakeholders.
Conduct authorized infrastructure-support activities, including device discovery, operating-system fingerprinting, service scanning, passive network scanning, and support for cybersecurity hardware and software configuration, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
Maintain proficiency with operational tools, cyber-defense methodologies, network and host analysis techniques, and evolving threats.
Support training, exercises, operational planning, and integrated cyber operations as assigned.
Collaborate with SOC operations, incident response, cyber engineering, threat intelligence, system administrators, and mission partners to share findings and support timely remediation.
Provide technical guidance, peer review, and knowledge sharing to junior analysts or other team members, as assigned.